Cramer's 'Mad Money' Recap: Next Week's Game Plan

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This piece has been updated and revised from its original publication.

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Wednesday's Independence Day holiday won't bring the American stock markets any independence from Europe next week, Jim Cramer told "Mad Money" viewers Friday.

He said his Game Plan continues to be dominated by European news. He cautioned investors to lighten up on technology stocks, the industrials, the banks and brokers, and the oil and gas stocks.

On Monday, Cramer said the June Institute For Supply Management, or ISM, index, is due out. He expects a bad number, with oil and gas production slowing amid falling oil prices. Cramer said he'll also be watching the German purchasing managers index, or PMI, to see if the hard times in Europe are finally spreading to the continent's strongest economy.

For Tuesday, Cramer said all eyes will be on the June auto and truck sales numbers. Strong auto sales could be good for Ford Motor (F) and General Motors (GM), but he remains bearish on Cummins (CMI) and Navistar (NAV) in the truck sector.

Then, on Wednesday, it's back to Europe with the latest retail sales numbers when the continent will dominate the headlines while we celebrate the Fourth of July in the U.S.

Thursday brings more euro-news, the European Central Bank meeting. Oil crude inventories will also come out, he noted, and any spike in supplies will likely kill the slight rebound in prices the markets have seen as of late.

But the end of the week brings the most important number, said Cramer -- the non-farm payroll report. Here again, Cramer said he's not expecting any good news. That's why he's looking forward to the following week, when earnings will once again take center stage.

Tips and Strategies

"What's happening with your stocks doesn't always reflect what's going on with the underlying business," Cramer reminded viewers, as he outlined some new tips and strategies to help individual investors manage their portfolios and get back to even.

Cramer explained that it's all too easy to assume a company and its stock are synonymous. After all, much of "Mad Money" is spent analyzing companies with good growth prospects and hefty dividends in the hopes they will reward shareholders for years to come. But in today's complicated markets, stocks, and markets, can move for many reasons, most of which have nothing to do with the underlying fundamentals.

A company's performance and its stock price don't move in a straight line, said Cramer. For example, many investors now use exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, which trade sectors or even the entire market as a single commodity. This allows good companies to trade in lock-step with the bad ones. There are also macro-economic factors, such as the financial crisis in Europe, which weigh heavily on the day-to-day action of the markets.

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